scholarly journals Design of a Reconfigurable Wall Disinfection Robot

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (18) ◽  
pp. 6096
Author(s):  
Ash Wan Yaw Sang ◽  
Chee Gen Moo ◽  
S. M. Bhagya P. Samarakoon ◽  
M. A. Viraj J. Muthugala ◽  
Mohan Rajesh Elara
Keyword(s):  
Public Spaces ◽  
Test Cases ◽  
Cleaning Robot ◽  
Risk Areas ◽  
Cleaning Robots ◽  
Cleaning And Disinfection ◽  
Indoor Spaces ◽  
Wall Following ◽  
Logic System ◽  
Robot Platform

During a viral outbreak, such as COVID-19, autonomously operated robots are in high demand. Robots effectively improve the environmental concerns of contaminated surfaces in public spaces, such as airports, public transport areas and hospitals, that are considered high-risk areas. Indoor spaces walls made up most of the indoor areas in these public spaces and can be easily contaminated. Wall cleaning and disinfection processes are therefore critical for managing and mitigating the spread of viruses. Consequently, wall cleaning robots are preferred to address the demands. A wall cleaning robot needs to maintain a close and consistent distance away from a given wall during cleaning and disinfection processes. In this paper, a reconfigurable wall cleaning robot with autonomous wall following ability is proposed. The robot platform, Wasp, possess inter-reconfigurability, which enables it to be physically reconfigured into a wall-cleaning robot. The wall following ability has been implemented using a Fuzzy Logic System (FLS). The design of the robot and the FLS are presented in the paper. The platform and the FLS are tested and validated in several test cases. The experimental outcomes validate the real-world applicability of the proposed wall following method for a wall cleaning robot.

scholarly journals Design of sTetro: A Modular, Reconfigurable, and Autonomous Staircase Cleaning Robot

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Ilyas ◽  
Shi Yuyao ◽  
Rajesh Elara Mohan ◽  
Manojkumar Devarassu ◽  
Manivannan Kalimuthu
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Navigation ◽  
Controller Design ◽  
Mechanical Design ◽  
Recognition Algorithm ◽  
Controlled Environment ◽  
System Modelling ◽  
Flat Surfaces ◽  
Cleaning Robot ◽  
Surrounding Environment ◽  
Cleaning Robots

The mechanical, electrical, and autonomy aspects of designing a novel, modular, and reconfigurable cleaning robot, dubbed as sTetro (stair Tetro), are presented. The developed robotic platform uses a vertical conveyor mechanism to reconfigure itself and is capable of navigating over flat surfaces as well as staircases, thus significantly extending the automated cleaning capabilities as compared to conventional home cleaning robots. The mechanical design and system architecture are introduced first, followed by a detailed description of system modelling and controller design efforts in sTetro. An autonomy algorithm is also proposed for self-reconfiguration, locomotion, and autonomous navigation of sTetro in the controlled environment, for example, in homes/offices with a flat floor and a straight staircase. A staircase recognition algorithm is presented to distinguish between the surrounding environment and the stairs. The misalignment detection technique of the robot with a front staircase riser is also given, and a feedback from the IMU sensor for misalignment corrective measures is provided. The experiments performed with the sTetro robot demonstrated the efficacy and validity of the developed system models, control, and autonomy approaches.

scholarly journals Design and Experiment of a Novel Façade Cleaning Robot with a Biped Mechanism

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 2398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shunsuke Nansai ◽  
Keichi Onodera ◽  
Prabakaran Veerajagadheswar ◽  
Mohan Rajesh Elara ◽  
Masami Iwase
Keyword(s):  
Polynomial Interpolation ◽  
Area Coverage ◽  
Glass Panel ◽  
High Rise ◽  
Cleaning Robot ◽  
Glass Panels ◽  
Glass Facade ◽  
Cleaning Robots ◽  
Real Scenario ◽  
Glass Façade

Façade cleaning in high-rise buildings has always been considered a hazardous task when carried out by labor forces. Even though numerous studies have focused on the development of glass façade cleaning systems, the available technologies in this domain are limited and their performances are broadly affected by the frames that connect the glass panels. These frames generally act as a barrier for the glass façade cleaning robots to cross over from one glass panel to another, which leads to a performance degradation in terms of area coverage. We present a new class of façade cleaning robot with a biped mechanism that is able overcome these obstacles to maximize its area coverage. The developed robot uses active suction cups to adhere to glass walls and adopts mechanical linkage to navigate the glass surface to perform cleaning. This research addresses the design challenges in realizing the developed robot. Its control system consists of inverse kinematics, a fifth polynomial interpolation, and sequential control. Experiments were conducted in a real scenario, and the results indicate that the developed robot achieves significantly higher coverage performance by overcoming both negative and positive obstacles in a glass panel.

scholarly journals Cascaded Machine-Learning Technique for Debris Classification in Floor-Cleaning Robot Application

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 2649 ◽  
Author(s):  
Balakrishnan Ramalingam ◽  
Anirudh Lakshmanan ◽  
Muhammad Ilyas ◽  
Anh Le ◽  
Mohan Elara
Keyword(s):  
Binary Classification ◽  
Support Vector ◽  
Single Shot ◽  
Machine Learning Technique ◽  
Cleaning Robot ◽  
Svm Model ◽  
Learning Technique ◽  
Essential Function ◽  
Cleaning Robots

Debris detection and classification is an essential function for autonomous floor-cleaning robots. It enables floor-cleaning robots to identify and avoid hard-to-clean debris, specifically large liquid spillage debris. This paper proposes a debris-detection and classification scheme for an autonomous floor-cleaning robot using a deep Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) cascaded technique. The SSD (Single-Shot MultiBox Detector) MobileNet CNN architecture is used for classifying the solid and liquid spill debris on the floor through the captured image. Then, the SVM model is employed for binary classification of liquid spillage regions based on size, which helps floor-cleaning devices to identify the larger liquid spillage debris regions, considered as hard-to-clean debris in this work. The experimental results prove that the proposed technique can efficiently detect and classify the debris on the floor and achieves 95.5% percent classification accuracy. The cascaded approach takes approximately 71 milliseconds for the entire process of debris detection and classification, which implies that the proposed technique is suitable for deploying in real-time selective floor-cleaning applications.

scholarly journals Multi-Sensor Orientation Tracking for a Façade-Cleaning Robot

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 1483 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Vega-Heredia ◽  
Ilyas Muhammad ◽  
Sriharsha Ghanta ◽  
Vengadesh Ayyalusami ◽  
Siti Aisyah ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Orientation Angle ◽  
Position Estimation ◽  
Measurement Unit ◽  
Vision Sensor ◽  
Window Frame ◽  
Cleaning Robot ◽  
Heading Angle ◽  
Glass Facade ◽  
Cleaning Robots ◽  
Glass Façade

Glass-façade-cleaning robots are an emerging class of service robots. This kind of cleaning robot is designed to operate on vertical surfaces, for which tracking the position and orientation becomes more challenging. In this article, we have presented a glass-façade-cleaning robot, Mantis v2, who can shift from one window panel to another like any other in the market. Due to the complexity of the panel shifting, we proposed and evaluated different methods for estimating its orientation using different kinds of sensors working together on the Robot Operating System (ROS). For this application, we used an onboard Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), wheel encoders, a beacon-based system, Time-of-Flight (ToF) range sensors, and an external vision sensor (camera) for angular position estimation of the Mantis v2 robot. The external camera is used to monitor the robot’s operation and to track the coordinates of two colored markers attached along the longitudinal axis of the robot to estimate its orientation angle. ToF lidar sensors are attached on both sides of the robot to detect the window frame. ToF sensors are used for calculating the distance to the window frame; differences between beam readings are used to calculate the orientation angle of the robot. Differential drive wheel encoder data are used to estimate the robot’s heading angle on a 2D façade surface. An integrated heading angle estimation is also provided by using simple fusion techniques, i.e., a complementary filter (CF) and 1D Kalman filter (KF) utilizing the IMU sensor’s raw data. The heading angle information provided by different sensory systems is then evaluated in static and dynamic tests against an off-the-shelf attitude and heading reference system (AHRS). It is observed that ToF sensors work effectively from 0 to 30 degrees, beacons have a delay up to five seconds, and the odometry error increases according to the navigation distance due to slippage and/or sliding on the glass. Among all tested orientation sensors and methods, the vision sensor scheme proved to be better, with an orientation angle error of less than 0.8 degrees for this application. The experimental results demonstrate the efficacy of our proposed techniques in this orientation tracking, which has never applied in this specific application of cleaning robots.

scholarly journals TATU: an Approach for Supporting Tourists with Disabilities to Indoor and Outdoor Navigation using Mobile Devices

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fábio J. Coutinho ◽  
Dayvson Sales ◽  
Wagner Fontes ◽  
Samuel Lucas V. L. Barbosa ◽  
Victor Accete ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Impairment ◽  
Mobile Application ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Indoor Navigation ◽  
Tourist Attractions ◽  
Adaptive Interface ◽  
Guided Tour ◽  
Indoor Spaces ◽  
Indoor And Outdoor ◽  
Outdoor Navigation

People with disabilities living in Brazil face great difficulties in the tasks of daily life mainly due to the lack of accessibility in public spaces, products and services. In this context, we noticed a lack of a computing tool that embraces both people with visual and hearing impairment. This work presents TATU -- a mobile application for both Android and iOS platforms aimed at supporting people with visual or hearing impairment to enjoy Brazilian tourist attractions, including both open-air and indoor spaces. TATU application has an adaptive interface exclusively designed for each of the impairment user profiles, it can work on guided tour mode by indoor navigation using BLE beacons and outdoor navigation using GPS. Our solution was evaluated by three experiments, one of which was carried out with blind volunteers and TATU application obtained satisfactory results for both spacious attractions with the lowest density of collection items and for the smallest spaces.

scholarly journals Wall-Following Behavior for a Disinfection Robot Using Type 1 and Type 2 Fuzzy Logic Systems

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (16) ◽  
pp. 4445
Author(s):  
M. A. Viraj J. Muthugala ◽  
S. M. Bhagya P. Samarakoon ◽  
Madan Mohan Rayguru ◽  
Balakrishnan Ramalingam ◽  
Mohan Rajesh Elara
Keyword(s):  
Fuzzy Logic ◽  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
Fuzzy Logic System ◽  
Superior Performance ◽  
Fuzzy Logic Systems ◽  
Interval Type ◽  
Wall Following ◽  
Logic System

Infectious diseases are caused by pathogenic microorganisms, whose transmission can lead to global pandemics like COVID-19. Contact with contaminated surfaces or objects is one of the major channels of spreading infectious diseases among the community. Therefore, the typical contaminable surfaces, such as walls and handrails, should often be cleaned using disinfectants. Nevertheless, safety and efficiency are the major concerns of the utilization of human labor in this process. Thereby, attention has drifted toward developing robotic solutions for the disinfection of contaminable surfaces. A robot intended for disinfecting walls should be capable of following the wall concerned, while maintaining a given distance, to be effective. The ability to operate in an unknown environment while coping with uncertainties is crucial for a wall disinfection robot intended for deployment in public spaces. Therefore, this paper contributes to the state-of-the-art by proposing a novel method of establishing the wall-following behavior for a wall disinfection robot using fuzzy logic. A non-singleton Type 1 Fuzzy Logic System (T1-FLS) and a non-singleton Interval Type 2 Fuzzy Logic System (IT2-FLS) are developed in this regard. The wall-following behavior of the two fuzzy systems was evaluated through simulations by considering heterogeneous wall arrangements. The simulation results validate the real-world applicability of the proposed FLSs for establishing the wall-following behavior for a wall disinfection robot. Furthermore, the statistical outcomes show that the IT2-FLS has significantly superior performance than the T1-FLS in this application.

Motion analysis of screw drive in-pipe cleaning robot

2022 ◽  
pp. 095440622110612
Author(s):  
Zheng Zhang ◽  
Linghui Hu ◽  
Xiuhong Li ◽  
Xinyu Hu
Keyword(s):  
Complex Structure ◽  
Stable Operation ◽  
Force Analysis ◽  
Screw Drive ◽  
Curved Pipes ◽  
Cleaning Robot ◽  
Kinematics Modeling ◽  
Simulation And Experiment ◽  
New Type ◽  
Cleaning Robots

In-pipe cleaning robots often need to carry cleaning tools, and their tails are connected with cables such as water pipes and air pipes. Especially when cleaning vertical straight pipes and curved pipes, a greater traction is required. Therefore, a new type of screw drive in-pipe cleaning robot was designed in this paper. The robot solves the problems of small traction, complex structure, and unstable motion of the in-pipe cleaning robot. The kinematics modeling was carried out on the screw drive in-pipe cleaning robot’s screw module for generating traction, and the force analysis was performed on this basis. The function model of the torque, air pressure, and traction of the screw module was established, which was verified by the simulation and experiment. The results show that the screw in-pipe cleaning robot has a large traction, stable operation, and can be well adapted to the vertical straight pipes and curved pipes.

Design of Cleaning Robot Autonomous Charging System

2013 ◽  
Vol 722 ◽  
pp. 497-502 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dong Qi Han ◽  
Jin Li
Keyword(s):  
Constant Current ◽  
Charging System ◽  
Charging Station ◽  
Hardware System ◽  
Cleaning Robot ◽  
Charging Current ◽  
Position Coding ◽  
Cleaning Robots ◽  
Constant Current Charging ◽  
Hardware Circuit

A system of cleaning robots independent charge containing hardware system and software system is designed. The hardware circuit of charging station includes a power supply circuit, the battery constant current charging circuit of charging current which can be regulated by the hardware and software, position coding signal transmitting circuit. This paper also presents a new independent charging algorithm that the robot can search automatically charging station using the random walk model in unknown environment, so that the robot have the ability to find independently the charging station. The results show that the cleaning robot can complete automatic charging, and the success rate is 100%.

A New Air-Conditioning Pipeline Cleaning Robot System

2011 ◽  
Vol 464 ◽  
pp. 313-317
Author(s):  
Zhi Xiang Li ◽  
Heng Wu Li ◽  
Zhi Hui Li
Keyword(s):  
Air Conditioning ◽  
The Self ◽  
Working Process ◽  
Robot System ◽  
Variable Diameter ◽  
Cleaning Robot ◽  
Circular Pipes ◽  
New Type ◽  
Cleaning Robots ◽  
Different Diameters

Presently most of the air-conditioning pipeline cleaning robots in the market do not have the self-adaptive capacity to variable diameter pipelines, and clean the circular pipeline incompletely, have the whipping problems in the working process. For this case, this paper developed a new type of pipe robot; the robot adopts the umbrella-like open-and-close mechanism, scissors lifting mechanism and tail location and navigation device. It can align the center of the circular pipes with different diameters automatically, and sweep 360° one-time, improve the efficiency and stability of the robot greatly.

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